WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. THIS BLOG HAS BEEN CALLED "THE DEFINITIVE BLOG ON MIAMI CRIMINAL LAW" BY THE NY TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE POPE, AND DONALD TRUMP WHO ALSO ONCE SAID IT WAS "REALLY GREAT". POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM

Monday, January 11, 2010

BACK IN MIAMI

Hank Adorno- remember him? He gets 2 million per seven clients. By contract.

Got a bar complaint. Won one count, lost one count from the referee - a North of the Border Judge who really stretched the law to give ol'Hank the benefit of the doubt about lying to Circuit Judge Peter Lopez:

Can the referee say with ‘precise explicit, lacking in confusion and of such weight that it produces a firm belief or conviction, without hesitation about the matter’ that respondent Adorno misled Judge Lopez and was less than forthright in the hearing? The answer is no.”

Rumpole, did you binge on Chateau Miami River before writing this post? Peter Lopez is not a former circuit judge. He's still a circuit judge in ROC court in the second floor of the REGJB. Did you forget about the people who labor in our building while out of town?

SCOTUS ... end of Melendez-Diaz? We were just getting used to you ....

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts caused an uproar among prosecutors by interpreting the Constitution to require that forensic and other evidence be presented mainly in person, not by affidavit.

On Monday, the Court heard arguments in Briscoe v. Virginia,a case that could be a vehicle for reversing that 5-4 decision less than a year after its issuance.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was not on the Court for the Melendez-Diaz case, sent out mixed signals on whether she would provide the vote needed for reversal. (Her predecessor David Souter was in the majority.) As has become her custom, Sotomayor actively questioned both sides during Monday's argument.

Meanwhile Justice Antonin Scalia, who authored last year's ruling, fought vociferously to save it during the hourlong hearing, and he strongly implied that the four dissenters in Melendez-Diaz had voted to review Briscoe just to overturn the precedent. "Why is this case here except as an opportunity to upset Melendez-Diaz?" Scalia asked, later adding, "I'm criticizing us for taking the case."

In the case before the Court, Mark Briscoe and Sheldon Cypress were prosecuted in Virginia courts on drug charges based in part on "certificates of analysis" from the state laboratory attesting to the amount and type of drugs found during their arrests. They both invoked the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment, which gives defendants the right to be confronted with the witnesses against them. They argued that the drug evidence needed to be presented in person so it could be subjected to cross-examination.

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld use of the written certificates because state law allows defendants to call the forensic analysts as witnesses, and Briscoe and Cypress had not done so.

The Court in Melendez-Diaz indicated that an approach like Virginia's, shifting the burden of calling the witness to the defendant, would not satisfy the Sixth Amendment.

hank adorno is a good man. he made a stupid mistake but not a mistake where he should loose everything that he has built. you try and manage 300 lawyers. that aint no fun. he needs to be punished bar the bar but the haters will always be haters. stop the hate and give him a public reprimand and be done with it. that is sufficent punishment for what he did... and by the way, where were you when they tried to take the old parrot jungle and make it mc mansions?? hank was the the first to say hey, lets make it a park. and then handled the bond deal to get it done.. for that alone he should get a pass but, what about everything he has done for foster kids in the state?

i hope the court takes some of these things into account before it mets out punishment.

WICHITA, Kan. (Jan. 12) -- A Kansas judge's decision to allow a confessed killer to argue that he believes the slaying of one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers was a justified act aimed at saving unborn children has upended what most expected to be an open-and-shut first-degree murder case.

Prosecutors have challenged the ruling that allows Scott Roeder to tell a jury that the fatal shooting of Wichita doctor George Tiller was voluntary manslaughter.

Some abortion opponents were pleasantly stunned and eager to watch Roeder plead his case. Tiller's colleagues and abortion rights advocates were outraged and feared the court's actions give a more than tacit approval to further acts of violence.

"This judge has basically announced a death sentence for all of us who help women," said Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., a longtime friend of Tiller who also performs late-term abortions. "That is the effect of the ruling."

Kansas law defines voluntary manslaughter as "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force." A conviction could bring a prison sentence closer to five years, instead of a life term for first-degree murder.

Prosecutors argued Monday that such a defense should not be considered because there is no evidence Tiller posed an imminent threat at the time of the killing.

"The State encourages this Court to not be the first to enable a defendant to justify premeditated murder because of an emotionally charged political belief," the prosecution wrote.